The prior art discloses pocket lighters in which the flame is kindled by electric spark discharge or heated filament as well as sparking type flints. In addition, lighters are disclosed which use self-combustible gas which spontaneously ignites on contact with the atmosphere and also catalytic materials in whose presence components in a fuel gas react to elevate the gas to the flash point.
The catalytic and self-combustible gas types are desireable from the standpoint that only a single consumable material, namely the fuel, must be replaced. Unfortunately, the self-combustible gas is difficult to safely contain and handle. Lighters using it must therefore be made with greater precision and cost than is consistent with mass market goals. The catalytic types suffer from the fact that the known chemical substances suitable for catalytic lighters do not heat instantly to ignition temperature, but instead they heat quite slowly during the early stages of reaction. As the gas and catalyst temperatures become elevated, the reaction speeds up and rapidly reaches the flash point of the gas. During the heating period, the fuel passing over the catalyst is dissipated uselessly in the atmosphere. This delay is annoying to the user.
Furthermore, the achievement of catalytic reactions with reasonable efficiency required a separate housing for the catalyst and a complicated structure for proportioning gas and air. These increase manufacturing precision and cost.
Electrically ignited lighters have the drawbacks of requiring a battery and that the generation of the required kindling temperature by spark or resistance heating consumes such a great amount of electric power per operation that battery life is necessarily limited. A user depending on his lighter can easily become annoyed when the battery unexpectedly fails to provide sufficient power to ignite the fuel.